Intro to fitting 35s (< 3" Lifts for those that wheel and love alignments)

That a good or bad dammit? Lol

Im assuming good.. so... Yes, do it.

 

BTF lowers are the way. Currently sitting at 7° of caster on my truck. No firewall rubbing on 35s. The next thing that comes into play are the inner fenders. Depending how hard you wheel/abuse your truck you’ll also need to tub the inners or replace them with JD Fab inners. Slow crawling isn’t as stressful on the core support as bottoming out through whoops though.

A trick that I did to help mitigate how easily I rub the inners is I added a 1/2” body lift to the core support and cab only. Will also be adding 1/4” spacers which should make the truck bump out about a 1/2” earlier(wheel travel not shock travel)

this should give an extra 1” of clearance at bump combined.

 

I forgot to add I have 1/4” spacers on my super bumps as well for the same reason. I haven't had any rubbing or stuffing bombing down washes. Like you said tho.. inners and how much trimming you want to do comes into play.

Btw.. we gotta get out and wheel brotha.. take the boosted 2nd gens out.

 

Ill be adding a 1/4 spacer on top of the shock and likely a 7/16 spacer under the bump stop. My spindle should add ~3/8 lift... production version will likely not yield any lift as this would only be possibly with oem lower ball joints. Tacomas lack droop in the front and have 80% up travel. Part of the reason I went with MT this round is to see how optimized it can be. Part of that is trying to get travel numbers closer to a 60/40 split. Will it work? We'll see haha. Maybe some new products will come of this. But i need to cycle it all and see how happy everything is. There is an internal spacer in the ADS coilovers ill be removing to add ~3/4 more droop. end goal is 7" up 3-3.5 down from ride height. But after expo we should definitely get out there. Planning on doing monthly runs up north even if its just for the day to get out of the heat.

 

Thank you all for the replies (as well as joeCOVA and the 100 pages of info prior) It sounds like BTF lowers are going to be on the menu. Might pair them with Accutune's UCA. Still have some life left in my 285s, but getting my ducks in a row.

 

Definitely interested in what you come up.. I've been chasing the same thing for years. An ideal MT setup, although.. everyone's ideal setup will vary. But I'm thinking we're somewhat on the same page. For now.. I have it setup for more up travel with a little cushion from the bumpstops and being spaced a bit. Works great for us when hitting trails or washes with some speed.

And sounds good. Would love to link up to gather more info or data if needed. I'm right down the street. Could convoy up to Expo as well when that time comes.

 

When you refer to caster, can we assume you mean negative caster?

 

Positive Caster

2nd to last photo in my post above shows the caster angle of the spindle to LCA.

 

Here’s my current numbers

 

Oh dammit as in, I just got the damn Dirt King lowers a year and a half ago!

 

Yeah with the Dirt King lowers and Wheelers Superbumps, I had to double up the spacers. I used the spacers the lowers came with but I still had lots of rubbing at the top of the fender. I added a wheelers spacer and that almost completely took care of it. It only slightly hit once on my last trip.

 

OK, I must have been thinking of Camber and the preference to be at 0 degrees to slightly negative.
I got distracted by the Sasquatch in one of your photos.

Depending on the alignment shop, I can only get ~2-3 degrees of Caster. I ask for close to 3. Stock lowers, SPC uppers. I've read that too much caster can make the steering heavy.

As for spacing superbumps and the like, I use hockey pucks. You can cut them with a sawzall to whatever thickness you like. Drill a hole in the center and you can even cut a notch from the edge to the center and slide them between the bump and mount to avoid backing the bolt out all the way.

 

Hahaha. Desert Squatch..

You can gain more caster with the Taco Tabs. And more caster actually lightens the steering. It's essentially stretching the wheelbase and it tracks much nicer now as well as has a lighter steering feel. It's (high/max caster) honestly been an improvement all around for me. Taco tabs + high caster LCAs has been a massive improvement in clearance and drivability.

And I can definitely make some spacers if needed. My aluminum ones have been solid. Pros of having my shop available for my projects.

 

Nice. I may have to look at the Taco Tabs. I know of some complaints with them when used with the TC type gussets. May be user error though. Either way, next time I get it dialed in to my liking I will tac the washer in place.

 

depends on condition of the tabs when you do the gussets. I added the Taco Tabs years after I did the TC gussets.. and didnt have an issue. They fit very nice, minus one where the tabs were bent in the past, so when we straightened them up and welded on the gussets, they werent perfect. So it just depends on what condition they are in, or if you can get them nice and straight when adding gussets, or.. wait until you have the tabs and set the gussets to them.

 

Here's a question that is sorta on topic but kinda not...
Brake pads. I did the 4Runner swap and I've been running Hawk LTS with the slotted Stoptech rotors with success. It's time to start thinking about replacing the pads and I'm probably going to stick with the LTS but what are you heavy guys running?

 

Full Wilwood big brake kit.

 

I'm almost through a second set of EBC Green Stuff on slotted/dimpled stock rotor size brakes. <100k mi on both sets combined. They do not have much for initial bite when cold. But improve after a couple stops.
Likely going to try the TRD pads next. Debating on rotors, mine may be past the point of getting them turned.

 

Not everything you said is true. Caster increases the tendency of the automobile (or motorcycle) to travel in a straight line at the expense of increased force required to turn. In modern automobiles the increased force is mostly canceled out by power steering.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caster_angle

 

I get what you're saying, and thank you for explaining. I guess the lightened feel in steering is just the byproduct of positive caster + power steering (which we should all have considering the context). Regardless, the steering lightened up with the higher/positive caster.